Among the many benefits of social media marketing for San Francisco Bay Area restaurants, where brunch is revered and foodies are plentiful, is the ability to attract potential patrons with some well-crafted food styling and photography in social media posts. Snapchat, a photo and messaging platform that users communicate on both through individual “snap” messaging and public posting on the 24-hour “story” feature, is a valuable asset that your San Francisco Bay Area restaurant can use for brand management and fostering informal advertising.
Curate An Experience
To start, consider the ways in which your San Francisco Bay Area business can manage its Snapchat profile. Starting with adding a group of loyal customers or frequent patrons as followers, daily posts on the “My Story” feature can include “snaps” such as the daily special dishes, promos for followers, or updates on special events in the San Francisco Bay Area or featured guests coming to the restaurant. Your story can hold several posts over a day, so consider posting multiple updates or related posts together to actually tell a Snapchat “story”.[2]
Same Day Content
The app can be distinguished among others for its fleeting nature: senders set a time between 1 and 10 seconds for their snap to be viewed before the message disappears, and stories are posted for a limit of one day. Whether this seems like a blessing or a curse to you, the 24-hour lifespan of posts will ensure that your posts on this social media platform are current, and topical to any followers who see a post on a given day. While Instagram or Facebook can be chronological records of your business’s past and present marketing, your Snapchat posts will only show the current events happening in the San Francisco Bay Area, of-the-day digital marketing choices you make. Furthermore, unlike Instagram or Facebook, followers must choose to tap on your story to see your post, saving you the anxiety of overwhelming your followers’ news feeds with frequent posts.
Geofilters
Second, your San Francisco Bay Area restaurant can strategize its Snapchat and social media presence on others’ messages and stories. A popular feature on the app is the geofilter- an addition to a post that indicates the geographic location of where the snap was taken in the San Francisco Bay Area. Purchasing a geofilter for your business can be a valuable investment; social media users posting their tasty dishes or of your restaurant’s decor will be able to identify and thereby advertise the restaurant to any of their own followers. This allows their own social media circle to discover the location of your San Francisco Bay Area business. The geofilters are custom, allowing you to represent your restaurant’s brand through creating the filter’s graphic design.[3]
Looking to implementing Snapchat into your restaurant’s digital marketing plan?
Piedmont Avenue Consulting, Inc. works with many restaurants in the Bay Area and beyond to give businesses the edge of providing live updates to loyal customers, a brand stamp on anyone’s Snapchat with a geofilter, and a presence on a rapidly growing social media platform as well as among foodies and other food enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Call at 510-761-5895 to schedule a free consultation with Restaurant Expert David Mitroff, and we’ll help you go through this process of creating and growing your restaurant business.
[2] Hoy, Tricia. “Inside Snapchat Marketing for Restaurants.” On Point: The Restaurant Technology Blog, 24 Aug. 2016, http://blog.speedlinesolutions.com/inside-snapchat-marketing-for-restaurants/. Accessed 16 July 2017.
[3] “Geofilters.” Snapchat, Snapchat, www.snapchat.com/geofilters. Accessed 16 July 2017.
